Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles Radonski waves to supporters after casting his ballot at a polling station in Caracas, Venezuela. / Fernando Llano, AP

by Peter Wilson, Special for USA TODAY

by Peter Wilson, Special for USA TODAY

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski said Thursday his movement will boycott an audit of the election results and push the government to hold a new presidential vote.

Capriles said the opposition would not participate in the audit because the National Electoral Council did not meet its demand for an examination of registers containing voters' signatures and fingerprints.

He said the opposition would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the April 14 election, which was narrowly won by Nicolás Maduro, the handpicked successor of President Hugo Chávez, an anti-American leader who died from cancer.

Capriles said he's not optimistic the Supreme Court, which is packed with allies of Chávez, would overturn results of the election.

"This is a fight for the truth," he said. "This fight is not over."

Capriles lost the presidential contest by fewer than 300,000 votes out of more than 14.7 million cast. His supporters have been calling for mass demonstrations.

Capriles accused Maduro of election fraud and said the election agency was stalling on a recount, subverting the will of the country.

Four of the agency's five directors are supporters of Maduro, and Capriles, the governor of the state of Miranda, has repeatedly questioned their impartiality. Venezuela's election agency said last week that it would hold a recount but has given few details about the procedure.

"The truth is that they stole the election," Capriles said at a news conference. "We are not going to let them mock us."

The drama is threatening to plunge Venezuela, which has the world's largest oil reserves, into its worst political crisis since 2004, when the country's opposition tried to recall Chávez.

"The more they drag out this recount, the more ammunition it gives Capriles," said Risa Grais-Targow, a Venezuela analyst with Eurasia Group. "And by doing so, the government is also creating the suspicion that they have something to hide."

Maduro's prison minister, Iris Varela, said this week that she was preparing a jail cell for Capriles, saying he should be held responsible for post-election violence in which at least eight people have died.

Maduro and his supporters have said that Capriles is putting the nation on the edge of crisis by pitting Venezuelans against one another. Capriles denies the charge.

"The country should remember who are calling for divisions," Capriles said. "They are the same people who for months lied to us about the health of the president, who said I was going to withdraw from the presidential race, and who said there wouldn't be a devaluation."

The country recently devalued the currency to cope with high inflation.